EVEN as the nation was trying to come to grips yesterday following the shocking weekend assassination of prominent attorney and former Independent Senator Dana Seetahal SC, police were continuing investigations into two unrelated murders committed in Laventille and Port-of-Spain between Sunday night and yesterday.

In the Sunday night incident, a Laventille man was gunned down in what police have since described as a gang-related shooting. Dead is Keron “Cake” Lewis, 26, of Village Council Street, Laventille.

Police sources said at about 9.30 pm, residents of Hamlet Trace, St Barbs heard several gunshots and alerted the police. When a team of officers from the Port-of-Spain Operations Unit led by Snr Supt Kenny McIntyre arrived on the scene they found Lewis’ bullet-riddled body on the road.

Lewis’ relatives could not contain their grief yesterday as they spoke with reporters at the Forensic Science Centre, St James where an autopsy was done. “One son I have and now he is gone,” cried Gary Lewis of Trou Macaque, Laventille as he spoke about his son.

Lewis said no matter what kind of person others may have thought his son was, he will always remember Keron as a loving and caring individual.

“People will say he was a bad person, but he was really good to us. He was a loving and sharing person to his family. Right before he died he came down the road and brought food for everybody in the house. He liked to cook and he loved to share what he cooked with all of us,” Lewis said.

The grieving man said his son was a labourer who worked in the Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) and was a father of three girls. Lewis said he spoke to his son over the phone a half-hour before the latter was cut down in a hail of bullets.

Lewis said at about 9.05 pm on Sunday, he telephoned his son and they spoke for several minutes. A half-hour later, relatives came to Lewis’ house with the shocking news that his son was found dead on the road.

In the second incident, a 20-year-old man was shot dead in broad daylight yesterday in Port-of-Spain. Police said Dexter Akino Alexander, 20, of Basilon Street, Port-of-Spain was shot on Duke Street in the capital.

According to police, Alexander who was a labourer with the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) was at Duke Street liming with friends when at 7 am, he was approached by an unknown assailant who shot him several times. Alexander died on the spot.

A report was made to police and officers later arrived at the scene along with the District Medical Officer who ordered the body of Alexander be removed to the Forensic Science Centre in St James.

Speaking reporters at the Centre, Alexander’s sister Alana Alexander said he was a good person to her, although she knew he was no saint, because of the friends he kept.

“I always used to tell him, show me your friends and I will show you who you are. But he always used to tell me he was doing his own thing and working hard and the only thing that people could do was be jealous of him,” Alexander said.

She told reporters she received an anonymous telephone call informing her Alexander was dead. When she asked who the person was and how they knew that her brother was dead, the caller terminated the conversation. She attempted to call the number back but couldn’t, because the number was blocked.

Alana lamented that it was his friends who had led her brother astray and instead of encouraging him to better himself, Alexander’s friends led him to the path of death. Up to press time, no arrest has been made in Alexander’s murder which was recorded as the 159th for the year.